


Contrivances

by orphan_account



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Pre-Canon, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-18 04:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1415626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every Sunday morning like clockwork a redheaded woman appears in the butcher shop with a massive basket and a trolley cart parked outside. Every Sunday morning like clockwork the redheaded woman swings the door open twice for that extra loud bell-tinkle to announce her presence, all leather-booted and camo-printed and seeming about to ready to knife a bitch at the slightest provocation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contrivances

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: "Izumi & Martel?"
> 
> Trigger warnings for mentions of child death and for two gendered slurs that are not utilised in a gendered context in the fic (but which could still make people uncomfortable, so, eh).
> 
> Unbeta'd/unedited/etc. Enjoy!

Every Sunday morning like clockwork a redheaded woman appears in the butcher shop with a massive basket and a trolley cart parked outside. Every Sunday morning like clockwork the redheaded woman swings the door open twice for that extra loud bell-tinkle to announce her presence, all leather-booted and camo-printed and seeming about to ready to knife a bitch at the slightest provocation.

Except, of course, for Izumi’s gentle growing belly, the singular sight on the planet—or so it seems to the housewife—that could bring a soft smile to the redheaded woman’s usually tightly-pressed-together lips.

Every Sunday morning like clockwork Izumi Curtis rises earlier than usual to prepare thick, fat slabs of meat, raw and dripping with congealing juices. Pork and beef, mostly, though every order comes with a side of chicken and veal as well. The redheaded woman prefers the legs and wings over breast, haunches over chest, red meat over white. With calloused hands and scarred palms and muscled fingers the woman handles the raw, bloodied piles of innards and flesh until the basket and the trolley carat groan under the weight.

“You going to be a’ight carryin’ all of that?” Izumi wipes the bleeding knife on her apron; the action leaves a scarlet streak across her stomach as though slice in half by a blade.

The redheaded woman snorts. “Yeah. S’why they send me ‘stead of anyone else.”

 _They_. One week she comes by with a dog tag and Izumi learns her name: _Martel_. “Like the Cretan liquor?” she asks nonchalantly as she folds over the massive sheets of headcheese that the woman requests at the end each time.

The woman shrugs. “Sure. Boss likes ‘em fancy wines, I guess.”

 _Boss_. Without breaking stride Izumi tabs the information away.

“Dogs?” she inquires a few weeks later, indicating the uptick in beef—the parts of the cow that canines in particular would salivate over—during the last month or so.

Martel barks out a laugh. “One, at least. Yeah, he’s new.”

 _He’s new_. A thousand tantalising hints from the redheaded woman, all leather-booted and camo-printed and seeming about to ready to knife a bitch at the slightest provocation.

One Sunday the butcher shop is closed.

When Izumi’s husband trudges up the stairs to switch the sign to _open_ again he discovers half the shop raided and sacked, with a massive suitcase of money sitting on the counter along with a note of apology scrawled in the messy freehand of the redheaded woman. Of—Izumi insists—Martel.

Every Sunday morning like clockwork the redheaded woman appears in the butcher shop with a massive basket and a trolley cart parked outside, but one Sunday morning, unlike clockwork, Izumi hasn’t prepared the usual order. Instead her husband greets the redheaded woman.

“Oi, what happened to, uh, the chick with the dreads?” Martel taps her fingers on the hilt of her knife, gaze riveted on Sig’s movements, as he packages her meat. “Izumi. She okay?”

A lengthy pause. “She lost . . . she lost the child.” He rings up the order while Martel stands, silent, stunned. “That’s five hundred twenty cenz.”

The next Sunday morning, unlike clockwork, the redheaded woman makes no such appearance. The husband shrugs and goes on. Then evening comes and with it a wrapped brown parcel with Izumi’s name scrawled in the messy freehand of _Martel_.

In bed Izumi opens it tiredly. In bed she reads the title of the volume: _On Homunculi, Human Transmutation, and Other Alchemical Arts Taboo_. In bed she smiles, slowly at first, and then widely.

“What is it, dear?” her husband asks, a tray of dinner in hand.

She conceals the book beneath the blanket, conceals the bulge beneath the tray. “Nothing. Just remind me to thank Martel, would you?”


End file.
